The war was even carried on underground, and mines were met by counter-mines; by sorties of the enemy too, which, however, were repulsed with great slaughter. The Russians, moreover, succeeded in pushing out their works beyond their trenches, and the allied armies extended their lines, till they almost met.
The war, indeed, seemed to wax more determined and bitter as the time flew by.
CHAPTER XII.
PELISSIER TO THE FRONT—DEATH OF LORD RAGLAN.
"The king is dead! Long live the king!"
Yes, the proud and ambitious Emperor Nicholas breathed his last on the second of March 1855, and Alexander the Second reigned in his stead. I do not mean to judge the dead emperor harshly, as many have done. De mortuis nil nisi bonum is an excellent motto; but, independent of this, I cannot but believe that in endeavouring vi et armis to cut his way to the sunny Mediterranean, Nicholas was following the traditional policy of his forbears, and that he believed he was doing the best he could for his country.
The emperor probably died half heart-broken: the victories not only of our troops and those of the French in the Crimea, but of the Turks, who in February drove the Russians from the gates of Eupatoria, had told upon his health; even the winter, with its hardships, its diseases, its death, had not annihilated our armies, and hope itself seemed to desert the heart of the great Czar. Heigh-ho! death is no respecter of persons; but even in the last moments of his life, Nicholas found strength to send a message to his troops. He was passing away into life eternal, but even from on high he would bend down to bless his warriors for their unequalled constancy and valour!
If any one expected that the war would now cease, he was much mistaken; for Alexander was as determined as his father had been.
But a few months more and summer would be in its prime and glory, the roads would no longer be sealed against the influx of troops, and the allied armies would be crushed out of existence and driven into the sea by sheer force of numbers, Sebastopol relieved, and victory won.
Well, this would certainly have been for us a national disaster of the gravest kind, and for the French also; but would it have put an end to the war? Would we, because the Crimea was lost, have stood quietly by and seen the northern Bear establish himself at Constantinople, complacently licking his paws as he saw his ships of war pass majestically to or from the Mediterranean? Undoubtedly not. The relief of Sebastopol by the Russians, and our destruction on the Upland, would have been but the commencement of a greater war that might have raged for years, despite the fact that it would have anastomosed with the terrible rebellion in India.